In current enterprises that manage large volumes of cash (such as large retailers and banks), orders for cash are issued to remote suppliers (for example, cash-in-transit companies), these orders are received at the enterprise (as inbound cash) and counted and/or authenticated by at least two members of the enterprise staff. The inbound cash may then be moved to a vault, where it is stored. The cash in the vault may be distributed to self-service terminals (such as ATMs or self-checkout point of sale terminals) or staff operated cash terminals (such as teller stations or point of sale terminals). Excess cash at the self-service terminals (which may be cash deposit ATMs) and/or the staff operated terminals may be moved to the vault for safe storage. If the vault has excess cash, then some of the cash in the vault may be removed and sent to the remote supplier (as outbound cash). All of these cash movements (inbound, outbound, and intra-enterprise) are typically recorded in a general ledger for the enterprise. Many of these movements have to be recorded and reconciled manually using paper records.
Furthermore, to secure cash transactions (inbound, outbound, and intra-enterprise), most enterprises currently operate on a “two pairs of eyes” policy. As such, each transaction in which cash transfers take place must be conducted with a second bank employee as a witness. This means that there is a negative impact on productivity wherever cash transactions are to be carried out and that staff members must often be used to supervise cash movement as it is re-located from one location to another across an enterprise. Even in small to medium-size enterprises, this activity can add up in time terms to more than one full-time equivalent staff member. Across a large enterprise this accumulates to be a significant negative contribution to operating efficiency and thus increases operational costs.
Furthermore, there is a delay in reconciling transactions because paper-based recording and reconciliation is used.